whistlepunk

noun, North American, logging, a workman who sends signals by means of a whistle to those operating a donkey-engine (“whistle, n.” OED)

“And everything goes by whistle. Sometimes the whistlepunk gets a little snappy on the thing to get you moving quicker, eh.”

“Then the whistlepunk sends the signal down to the engineer. Well when this butt rigging takes off. It’s going to be from the side of the mountain to nothing when it takes off.”

“All of sudden we heard the whistle go. ‘Holy!’ And I heard the engine just, you know, they just roar these big engines. And we just dove over from the bank from that. That log went over top of us. Just that high off, it come up and swung. And went right over top of both of us. It would have crushed us just like that. Well I’ll tell you, when we saw that whistlepunk in the washroom that night when we come in, I’ll tell you the sparks were flying then.”